1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.5
8 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
10 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
14 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
16 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
20 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
21 only if it doesn't already have a value.
23 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
25 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
27 restart <n> Return the program state to a
28 previously saved state.
30 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
32 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
34 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
35 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
37 info forks List forks of the user program that
38 are available to be debugged.
40 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
41 forks of the user program that are
42 available to be debugged.
44 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
45 that are available to be debugged (and
46 kill the forked process).
48 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
49 that are available to be debugged (and
50 allow the process to continue).
54 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
56 * Improved Windows host support
58 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
59 native console support, and remote communications using either
60 network sockets or serial ports.
64 The ARM rdi-share module.
66 The Netware NLM debug server.
68 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
70 * New native configurations
72 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
73 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
77 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
79 * New command line options
81 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
82 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
83 the child (debugged) program exited with.
84 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
85 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
86 specified multiple times and in conjunction
87 with the --command (-x) option.
89 * Deprecated commands removed
91 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
95 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
96 othernames set arm disassembler
97 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
98 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
99 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
102 * New BSD user-level threads support
104 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
105 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
108 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
109 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
110 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
112 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
113 are not yet supported.
115 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
116 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
118 * REMOVED configurations and files
120 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
121 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
122 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
124 * New "set print array-indexes" command
126 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
127 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
130 * VAX floating point support
132 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
134 * User-defined command support
136 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
137 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
138 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
140 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
142 * New command line option
144 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
147 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
149 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
150 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
151 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
152 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
153 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
155 * Internationalization
157 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
158 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
159 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
163 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
164 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
165 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
167 * New native configurations
169 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
173 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
174 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
176 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
178 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
179 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
180 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
183 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
184 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
185 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
197 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
198 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
200 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
202 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
203 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
204 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
214 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
216 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
218 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
219 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
222 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
224 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
225 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
226 IRIX long double values).
230 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
231 command. This problem has been fixed.
233 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
235 * Fix for ``many threads''
237 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
238 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
241 ptrace: No such process.
242 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
244 This problem has been fixed.
246 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
248 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
251 * New ``start'' command.
253 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
255 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
257 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
258 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
259 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
261 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
262 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
263 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
264 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
265 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
266 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
267 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
268 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
269 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
271 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
273 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
274 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
275 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
276 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
277 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
279 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
280 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
281 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
283 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
285 * New native configurations
287 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
288 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
289 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
290 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
291 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
292 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
293 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
295 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
297 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
298 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
299 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
300 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
301 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
302 work, was also included.
304 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
305 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
315 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
316 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
318 * REMOVED configurations and files
320 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
321 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
322 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
323 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
324 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
325 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
326 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
327 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
328 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
330 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
332 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
334 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
336 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
337 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
338 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
339 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
342 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
344 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
345 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
346 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
347 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
348 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
349 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
352 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
354 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
356 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
357 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
358 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
360 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
362 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
363 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
365 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
367 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
368 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
369 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
371 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
373 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
374 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
376 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
378 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
379 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
380 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
382 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
384 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
385 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
386 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
388 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
390 * Removed --with-mmalloc
392 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
393 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
395 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
397 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
398 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
399 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
400 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
402 * Revised SPARC target
404 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
405 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
406 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
407 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
408 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
412 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
413 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
414 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
417 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
419 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
420 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
423 * C++ nested types and namespaces
425 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
426 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
427 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
428 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
429 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
430 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
431 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
432 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
433 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
435 * New native configurations
437 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
438 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
439 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
440 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
441 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
443 * New debugging protocols
445 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
447 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
449 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
450 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
451 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
453 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
455 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
456 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
457 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
460 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
461 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
462 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
463 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
464 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
465 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
466 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
467 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
468 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
470 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
472 * REMOVED configurations and files
474 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
475 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
476 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
477 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
478 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
479 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
480 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
481 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
482 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
483 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
484 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
485 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
486 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
487 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
488 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
489 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
490 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
492 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
496 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
499 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
501 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
502 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
503 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
506 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
507 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
512 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
513 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
514 remote protocol documentation for details.
516 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
518 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
519 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
520 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
523 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
525 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
526 per-thread variables.
528 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
530 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
531 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
533 * Separate debug info.
535 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
536 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
537 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
538 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
539 and optional debug files.
541 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
543 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
544 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
547 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
548 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
552 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
553 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
554 considered "useable".
556 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
558 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
559 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
562 * GDB supports logging output to a file
564 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
565 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
567 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
569 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
570 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
573 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
575 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
576 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
580 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
581 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
582 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
583 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
584 data, for more informative profiling results.
586 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
588 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
589 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
590 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
592 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
595 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
596 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
597 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
598 in a subsequent -var-update.
600 * New native configurations.
602 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
604 * Multi-arched targets.
606 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
607 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
609 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
611 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
612 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
613 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
616 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
617 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
618 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
619 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
620 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
621 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
622 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
623 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
624 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
625 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
626 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
627 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
629 * REMOVED configurations and files
632 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
633 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
634 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
635 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
636 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
637 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
639 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
640 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
641 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
642 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
643 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
644 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
646 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
648 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
649 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
650 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
651 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
652 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
654 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
656 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
658 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
659 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
660 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
661 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
662 shared libs like mad''.
664 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
666 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
667 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
668 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
669 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
671 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
673 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
674 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
677 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
678 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
680 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
681 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
683 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
684 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
685 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
686 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
688 * Multi-arched targets.
690 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
691 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
693 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
694 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
695 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
699 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
702 * New native configurations
704 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
705 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
706 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
707 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
709 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
711 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
712 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
713 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
716 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
717 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
718 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
719 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
720 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
721 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
722 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
723 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
724 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
725 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
727 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
728 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
732 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
734 * REMOVED configurations and files
736 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
737 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
738 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
739 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
740 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
742 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
744 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
746 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
747 commands. The default is 1024.
749 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
751 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
753 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
755 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
756 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
757 from a file into memory (restore).
759 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
761 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
762 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
763 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
765 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
773 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
774 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
775 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
777 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
778 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
779 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
781 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
782 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
783 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
785 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
786 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
787 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
789 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
791 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
793 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
794 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
795 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
796 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
797 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
798 (notably embedded) targets.
800 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
802 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
803 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
804 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
805 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
807 * New command line option
809 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
811 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
813 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
814 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
815 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
816 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
817 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
818 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
819 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
820 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
821 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
822 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
824 * Changes in ARM configurations.
826 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
827 configuration is fully multi-arch.
829 * New native configurations
831 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
832 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
833 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
834 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
838 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
840 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
842 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
843 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
844 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
847 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
848 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
849 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
850 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
851 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
853 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
855 * REMOVED configurations and files
857 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
859 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
860 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
861 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
862 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
863 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
864 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
865 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
866 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
867 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
868 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
869 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
871 * Changes to command line processing
873 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
874 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
876 * Changes to key bindings
878 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
880 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
882 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
884 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
887 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
889 Numerous documentation fixes.
891 Numerous testsuite fixes.
893 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
895 * New native configurations
897 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
898 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
899 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
900 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
902 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
906 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
908 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
910 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
912 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
913 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
914 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
915 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
916 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
918 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
919 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
920 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
921 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
922 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
923 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
924 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
925 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
927 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
928 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
930 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
931 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
932 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
935 * REMOVED configurations and files
937 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
938 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
940 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
944 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
946 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
947 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
952 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
954 * The MI enabled by default.
956 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
957 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
958 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
959 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
960 which is now deprecated.
962 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
964 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
965 main features are supported:
967 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
969 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
972 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
974 - a Pascal expression parser.
976 However, some important features are not yet supported.
978 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
980 - there are some problems with boolean types;
982 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
983 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
985 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
987 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
989 * Changes in completion.
991 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
992 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
993 users expect at the shell prompt.
995 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
996 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
997 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
998 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
999 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1000 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1001 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1003 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1005 * New platform-independent commands:
1007 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1008 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1009 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1011 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1013 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1014 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1015 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1017 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1019 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1020 multi-threaded programs though.
1022 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1024 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1026 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1027 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1030 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1032 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1033 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1034 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1035 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1036 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1039 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1040 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1041 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1043 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1045 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1046 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1048 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1049 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1052 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1053 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1054 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1055 a given linear address.
1057 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1058 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1059 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1061 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1063 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1065 * Changes in documentation.
1067 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1068 Documentation License.
1070 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1073 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1075 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1078 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1079 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1080 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1082 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1084 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1085 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1086 contents of this file.
1090 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1092 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1094 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1096 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1097 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1098 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1099 greater level of detail.
1101 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1103 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1104 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1105 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1108 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1110 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1111 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1112 machines ``out of the box''.
1114 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1115 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1116 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1117 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1118 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1120 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1121 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1122 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1123 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1124 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1126 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1127 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1130 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1133 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1134 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1135 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1136 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1138 * New native configurations
1140 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1141 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1145 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1146 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1147 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1148 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1150 * OBSOLETE configurations
1152 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1153 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1155 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1158 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1159 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1160 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1161 be permanently REMOVED.
1163 * Gould support removed
1165 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1167 * New features for SVR4
1169 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1170 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1171 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1173 * Many C++ enhancements
1175 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1176 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1178 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1180 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1181 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1182 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1183 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1185 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1186 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1188 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1190 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1191 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1192 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1194 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1195 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1197 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1199 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1200 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1201 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1203 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1205 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1206 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1207 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1209 * ``apropos'' command added.
1211 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1212 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1213 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1217 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1218 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1219 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1220 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1221 enabled by configuring with:
1223 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1225 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1227 * New native configurations
1229 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1230 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1231 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1235 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1236 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1237 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1239 * OBSOLETE configurations
1241 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1243 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1244 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1245 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1246 be permanently REMOVED.
1250 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1251 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1252 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1253 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1254 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1255 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1256 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1261 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1263 * set extension-language
1265 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1266 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1267 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1268 set extension-language .c c++
1269 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1270 and their associated languages.
1272 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1274 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1275 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1276 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1280 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1281 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1283 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1284 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1286 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1287 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1288 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1289 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1290 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1291 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1292 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1293 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1295 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1296 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1297 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1298 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1302 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1303 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1304 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1305 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1306 for xdb and dbx commands.
1310 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1311 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1312 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1314 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1315 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1316 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1318 * Debugging across forks
1320 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1325 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1326 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1327 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1329 * GDB remote protocol additions
1331 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1332 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1333 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1334 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1336 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1337 full 64-bit address. The command
1339 set remoteaddresssize 32
1341 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1342 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1345 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1346 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1348 maint packet heythere
1350 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1351 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1354 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1355 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1356 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1358 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1360 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1361 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1362 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1364 * mask-address variable for Mips
1366 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1367 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1368 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1370 * Higher serial baud rates
1372 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1373 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1374 to achieve all of these rates.)
1378 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1379 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1382 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1384 * New native configurations
1386 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1387 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1388 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1389 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1390 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1391 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1392 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1396 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1397 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1398 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1399 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1400 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1401 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1402 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1403 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1404 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1405 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1406 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1408 * New debugging protocols
1410 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1411 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1412 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1413 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1414 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1415 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1419 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1420 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1425 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1426 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1428 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1430 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1431 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1432 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1434 * Live range splitting
1436 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1437 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1438 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1442 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1443 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1447 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1448 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1449 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1454 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1459 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1460 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1461 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1462 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1463 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1464 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1468 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1469 the symbol at the specified address.
1473 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1474 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1475 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1476 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1477 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1481 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1482 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1483 of most MIPS variants.
1487 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1488 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1489 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1493 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1494 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1495 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1496 the possible architectures.
1498 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1500 * New native configurations
1502 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1503 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1504 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1505 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1506 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1507 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1511 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1512 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1513 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1514 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1515 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1517 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1521 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1522 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1523 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1524 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1525 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1529 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1531 * Windows 95/NT native
1533 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1534 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1535 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1536 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1537 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1539 * dont-repeat command
1541 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1542 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1543 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1544 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1546 * Send break instead of ^C
1548 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1549 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1550 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1552 * Remote protocol timeout
1554 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1555 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1556 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1558 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1560 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1561 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1562 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1563 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1564 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1566 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1567 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1568 automatically on hpux10.
1570 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1572 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1574 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1576 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1577 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1578 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1579 every character. The default value is 1050.
1581 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1583 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1584 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1585 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1586 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1587 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1588 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1590 * Speedups for remote debugging
1592 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1593 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1594 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1596 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1598 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1599 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1601 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1603 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1605 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1606 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1608 * Remote targets use caching
1610 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1611 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1612 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1613 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1614 off' turns the the data cache off.
1616 * Remote targets may have threads
1618 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1619 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1620 gdb/remote.c for details.
1624 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1625 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1626 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1627 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1628 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1629 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1630 sequence is something like
1632 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1634 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1638 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1639 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1640 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1641 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1642 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1643 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1644 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1645 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1649 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1650 but does simplify configuration and building.
1654 GDB now supports hpux10.
1656 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1658 * New native configurations
1660 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1661 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1662 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1663 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1667 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1668 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1669 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1670 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1673 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1675 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1676 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1677 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1678 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1679 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1681 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1683 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1684 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1687 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1689 To execute the command use:
1692 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1693 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1694 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1696 * New `if' and `while' commands
1698 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1699 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1700 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1701 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1702 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1703 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1704 if the expression is zero.
1706 * Fortran source language mode
1708 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1709 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1710 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1711 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1714 * Better HPUX support
1716 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1717 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1718 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1719 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1720 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1726 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1727 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1733 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1734 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1737 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1738 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1740 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1742 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1743 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1744 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1745 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1746 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1747 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1749 * New DOS host serial code
1751 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1752 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1755 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1757 * New "complete" command
1759 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1760 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1762 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1764 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1765 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1767 * Breakpoint hit counts
1769 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1770 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1771 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1772 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1773 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1776 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1778 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1779 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1780 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1782 * Shared library breakpoints
1784 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1785 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1787 * Hardware watchpoints
1789 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1790 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1792 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1796 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1797 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1799 * Improved Irix 5 support
1801 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1803 * Improved HPPA support
1805 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1807 * New native configurations
1809 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1810 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1811 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1812 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1816 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1817 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1820 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1822 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1823 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1827 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1828 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1830 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1832 * Irix 5 is now supported
1836 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1837 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1838 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1839 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1840 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1843 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1845 * User visible changes:
1849 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1850 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1851 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1852 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1853 debugging info for the mips target).
1855 * DEC Alpha native support
1857 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1858 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1859 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1860 Alpha-specific notes.
1862 * Preliminary thread implementation
1864 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1866 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1868 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1869 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1872 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1874 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1875 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1876 call methods, ...etc.
1878 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1880 * User visible changes:
1882 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1883 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1884 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1885 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1887 Filename completion now works.
1889 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1890 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1891 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1893 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1894 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1895 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1896 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1897 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1901 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1902 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1905 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1909 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1910 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1911 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1915 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1916 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1917 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1918 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1919 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1923 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1924 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1925 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1927 * New targets supported
1929 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1930 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1931 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1932 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1933 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1935 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1936 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1937 GO32 memory extender.
1939 * New remote protocols
1941 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1943 * New source languages supported
1945 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1946 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1947 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1950 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1952 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1954 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1955 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1956 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1957 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1958 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1959 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1961 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1963 * Faster and better demangling
1965 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1966 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1967 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1968 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1969 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1970 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1973 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1974 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1975 compiler does not actually implement.
1977 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1979 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1980 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1981 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1982 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1983 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1984 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1987 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1988 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1990 * Improved configure script
1992 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1993 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1994 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1995 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1997 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1998 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1999 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2000 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2001 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2002 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2004 * Documentation improvements
2006 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2007 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2008 before submitting changes.
2010 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2011 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2012 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2013 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2014 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2016 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2017 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2018 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2019 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2020 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2021 around this problem.
2025 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2026 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2027 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2030 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2031 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2033 * New native hosts supported
2035 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2036 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2038 * New targets supported
2040 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2042 * New file formats supported
2044 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2045 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2049 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2051 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2052 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2054 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2055 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2056 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2058 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2059 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2061 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2062 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2063 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2066 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2067 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2068 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2069 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2070 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2072 * Internal improvements
2074 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2075 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2077 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2078 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2079 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2080 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2081 shared code that handles any of them.
2083 * New command line options
2085 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2089 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2090 General Public License.
2092 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2094 * Host/native/target split
2096 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2097 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2098 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2099 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2100 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2102 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2103 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2104 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2105 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2106 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2107 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2108 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2110 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2111 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2112 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2114 * New hosts supported
2116 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2117 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2118 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2120 * New targets supported
2122 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2123 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2125 * New native hosts supported
2127 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2128 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2129 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2131 * New file formats supported
2133 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2134 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2135 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2139 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2140 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2141 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2143 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2145 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2146 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2147 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2148 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2152 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2153 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2154 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2156 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2160 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2161 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2164 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2165 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2167 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2168 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2169 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2170 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2171 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2172 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2174 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2175 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2176 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2177 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2181 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2182 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2183 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2184 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2185 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2187 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2188 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2189 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2190 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2194 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2195 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2196 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2197 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2198 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2199 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2200 each instruction being stepped through.
2202 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2203 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2205 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2206 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2207 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2208 processor with a serial port.
2212 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2213 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2214 supported, and what files each one uses.
2218 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2219 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2220 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2221 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2223 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2224 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2225 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2226 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2230 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2231 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2232 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2233 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2234 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2235 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2237 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2240 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2242 * Better support for C++ function names
2244 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2245 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2246 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2247 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2248 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2250 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2251 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2252 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2253 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2254 for the list of formats.
2256 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2258 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2259 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2260 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2261 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2262 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2263 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2266 * New 'maintenance' command
2268 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2269 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2270 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2272 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2273 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2274 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2275 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2276 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2277 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2279 The following commands are new:
2281 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2282 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2283 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2285 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2287 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2288 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2289 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2290 read after argv processing.
2292 * New hosts supported
2294 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2296 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2298 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2299 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2300 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2301 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2302 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2305 * New targets supported
2307 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2309 * More smarts about finding #include files
2311 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2312 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2313 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2314 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2315 the one that contains your sources.
2317 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2318 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2319 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2321 * Interesting infernals change
2323 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2324 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2325 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2326 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2328 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2330 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2331 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2332 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2334 See the ChangeLog for details.
2336 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2338 * New machines supported (host and target)
2340 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2342 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2344 * New malloc package
2346 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2347 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2348 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2349 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2350 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2351 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2355 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2356 'help info proc' for details.
2358 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2360 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2361 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2364 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2366 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2367 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2368 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2369 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2370 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2371 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2373 * Cross byte order fixes
2375 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2376 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2378 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2380 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2381 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2382 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2383 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2384 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2385 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2386 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2387 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2388 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2389 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2391 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2392 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2393 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2394 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2396 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2397 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2398 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2401 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2403 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2404 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2405 shared across multiple host platforms.
2407 * longjmp() handling
2409 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2410 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2411 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2412 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2416 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2417 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2422 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2423 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2424 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2426 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2428 * New machines supported (host and target)
2430 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2432 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2433 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2435 * New machines supported (target)
2437 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2441 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2442 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2443 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2445 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2446 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2447 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2448 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2449 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2452 * New features for SVR4
2454 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2455 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2456 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2458 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2459 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2460 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2462 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2463 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2465 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2467 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2468 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2469 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2470 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2471 same code linked statically.
2475 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2476 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2477 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2478 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2479 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2480 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2484 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2485 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2486 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2489 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2491 * New machines supported (host and target)
2493 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2494 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2495 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2497 * Almost SCO Unix support
2499 We had hoped to support:
2500 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2501 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2502 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2503 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2505 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2507 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2508 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2509 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2510 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2515 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2516 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2517 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2521 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2522 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2523 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2525 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2527 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2528 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2529 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2531 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2532 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2533 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2534 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2537 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2538 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2539 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2540 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2543 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2544 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2547 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2548 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2549 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2552 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2554 * Improved configuration
2556 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2557 Porting BFD is simpler.
2561 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2562 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2563 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2564 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2568 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2570 * New host supported (not target)
2572 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2575 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2577 * Multiple source language support
2579 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2580 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2581 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2582 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2583 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2584 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2588 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2589 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2590 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2591 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2593 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2594 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2595 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2597 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2598 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2602 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2603 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2604 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2605 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2608 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2610 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2611 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2612 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2613 examining core files.
2617 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2620 * New machines supported (host and target)
2622 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2623 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2624 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2626 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2628 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2630 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2632 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2633 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2634 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2636 * New remote interfaces
2642 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2646 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2648 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2649 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2650 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2651 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2652 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2653 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2654 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2655 stub on the target system.
2657 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2659 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2660 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2661 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2663 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2664 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2667 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2669 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2670 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2672 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2673 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2674 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2676 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2677 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2678 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2679 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2681 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2682 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2683 it is already running. Default is ON.
2685 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2686 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2687 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2688 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2691 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2692 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2693 or the value of the environment variable
2696 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2697 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2700 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2701 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2702 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2704 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2705 history expansion will be performed on
2706 command line input. The default is OFF.
2708 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2709 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2710 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2712 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2713 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2714 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2717 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2718 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2719 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2722 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2723 ``set width'' instead.
2725 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2726 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2727 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2728 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2730 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2733 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2736 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2739 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2742 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2744 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2745 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2746 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2750 * Support for Shared Libraries
2752 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2753 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2754 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2755 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2756 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2757 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2758 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2759 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2761 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2762 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2763 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2765 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2770 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2771 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2772 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2773 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2774 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2775 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2777 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2779 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2781 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2782 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2783 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2786 * C++ multiple inheritance
2788 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2791 * C++ exception handling
2793 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2794 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2795 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2798 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2799 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2800 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2802 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2803 current stack frame.
2806 * Minor command changes
2808 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2809 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2810 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2812 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2813 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2814 frames without printing.
2816 * New directory command
2818 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2819 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2820 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2821 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2822 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2824 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2826 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2829 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2830 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2831 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2832 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / binutils-gdb.git / blob